No working Mondays and Fridays? Here's what most people think
Odd shifts
Covid-19 has transformed the way we used to live our lives; it has divided our timeline into pre- and post-Covid-19 eras. One thing that has changed drastically is our work culture. Working six days per week to five days per week,and working from home during the pandemichas made us all realise that work culture can be altered as per changing times and that nothing is rigid.
With major companies like Amazon, Disney, Salesforce, and Meta trying to call their employees back to office, the corporate world is grappling with a big question: Are we ever returning to the office five days a week?
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A few companies already started a four-day work week for their employees, with increased working hours from 8 hours a day to 12 hours per day on working days.
A report published by Business Insider last year quoted Steven Roth, the chairman of Vornado, one of New York’s biggest private landlords, as saying that Mondays in the office are “touch-and-go” and Fridays are likely “dead forever”.
Meanwhile, a report from Placer.ai, a firm that tracks mobile-phone data from 800 sites across the US, found that those who come to the office are indeed more likely to do so in the middle of the week. They appear to be avoiding the workplace on Mondays and Fridays, according to the data.
No working Mondays and Fridays?
The Business Insider started a poll on LinkedIn, to see if people agreed with the stats. It asked in the poll, “Given the choice, do you go to the office on Mondays and Fridays?” with three options:
Yes, Mondays and Fridays
No, either Mondays or Fridays
No, neither day
As of Monday, just over 16,000 people had already responded, and the results validate Roth’s contention and the Placer.ai data. Though this was not a scientific method, of course, it provided an interesting insight into what people actually think.
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A little less than half of the respondents said they wouldn't go to the office on Mondays and Fridays. Another 29 per cent said they would go either on Monday or Friday, but not both. And only 22 per cent said that given the choice they would go both Mondays and Fridays.
Few people want to work on Monday, Friday, or both days.But why?
An academic administrator wrote on Insider’s LinkedIn post telling why he wants to work on Friday and Monday, “the commute is easier on both days because fewer people work those days, it's more peaceful in coffee shops as well."
And an academic based in the UK agreed on the ease of a Friday commute, "Love working Fridays ... nice and quiet and commute is easy. Also a sense of relaxation as the weekend approaches," he wrote. "Hate Monday working though, for the converse reasons."
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The majority of the people agree on a four-day or five-day hybrid workweek. A four-day workweek seems a long way away for most US workers, butless than half are coming to the office.
Kastle Systems, which tracks when employees swipe their badges at office entrances, found that the average office occupancy rates across the week for the country's 10 major metro areas were just under 50 per cent for the weeks beginning June 14 and June 21.
(With inputs from agencies)
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